1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a print control method in a networked image forming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In large organisations it is common to provide many image forming apparatuses (e.g. multi-function peripherals), that are connected to a network, for use by multiple users. Such an approach is often more economical than providing separate printers for each user, especially if advanced functions—such as double-sided printing, colour and finishing functions—are desired. When the first such systems were introduced, the user would designate which image forming apparatus would be used at the time of sending a document to print. However, this is not always convenient.
In an alternative approach, the user adds a document to be printed to a print queue, without specifying a specific image forming apparatus. The print queue is treated by the operating system of the user's PC as a virtual printer so that the user can select it when printing from any application running on his PC. Then, when the user wants to print the document, the user goes to a networked image forming device and identifies himself, e.g. using a username and PIN or password or a token such as a swipe card or RFID. The image forming apparatus obtains a list of the documents in the print queue belonging to the user. The list is displayed to the user who selects the documents to be printed and the image forming apparatus prints the selected documents.
The above system works well for print jobs generated by applications running in the user's own PC. However, a large organisation may well have some enterprise applications which are run on central mainframe computers. Enterprise applications may perform vital functions for the organisation, for example transaction processes such as invoice generation and management of large databases. Enterprise applications are often specific to the organisation concerned and may represent very large investments in programming and development. Often enterprise applications rely on outdated programming languages, operating systems or hardware so that development of the applications is particularly hard. Such enterprise applications are often referred to as legacy applications.
A particular issue with many enterprise applications is that they have their own individual processes for data output, in particular for printing. Print outputs from many enterprise applications cannot be included in the user-centric centralised print queue systems described above. This is inconvenient for users.
It is an aim of the present invention to at least partially solve one or more of the above problems and provide improved user convenience for printing from enterprise systems.